no, because of the 50-move rule, there is a limit to the number of possible moves in a game. the possibilities for each number of moves has to be finite, because there are only 32 pieces and 64 squares. so the number of possible chess games is finite. however, there are more of them than grains of sand on the earth.
Infinite possibilities in a game of chess?
Sort:
No, it's not infinite but it's really a very huge number. In another forum topic, there are one noventrigintillion (10^120; short scale) possible positions, more than the total number of electrons in the universe. 
Why do people always ask this? There's finitely many moves, pieces, and squares. Repetitions are not allowed. How could it be infinite?
Some folks use the word infinite very loosely, meaning very large.
the 50 move rule doesn't seem to apply to me lately
If you think 10^120 is a big number think again.
Say you have two balloons and a pipe between them that allow a gas to go from one balloon to the other.
If you have one molecule, the chance that this molecule is in the left balloon is 1/2. If you have two molecules, that chance is now 1/4. For three molecules it is 1/8, for one mole it is 1/2^(6.022x10^23). Now that is 2^(6.022x10^23) odds against 1. That's a huge number, now consider that you could have two gigantic balloons with millions of moles inside...
I feel obligated to point out that there aren't millions of moles of air in a balloon.
I feel obligated to point out "so what". Just kidding, guys.
neneko wrote: I feel obligated to point out that there aren't millions of moles of air in a balloon.
There could be, depending on the size of the balloon. Gigantic didn't give it away? Perhaps the word balloon is not the best one to use. I am not necessarily referring to a flexible gas container also.
If my calculation is not mistaken there is in the biggest dirigible of the world approx 8 millions of moles of gas inside.
"With its volume of 6,500,000-cubic feet of gas, the new dirigible will be more than twice the size of the Los Angeles."
6,500,000 cubic feet of gas.
1 cubic foot = 7.5 gallons = 28.25 liters.
6,500,000 cubic feet of gas = 183,625,000 liters.
There is for one mole of gas at STP a volume of 22.4L
That is 8,197,544 moles of gas.
for one million moles of air you'd need a balloon with approximately 18m radius. So yeah.. big balloons
I don't think that's possible because I don't think moles and derigerbils get along.
Feb 11, 2008
0
#13
"more than the total number of electrons in the universe" Why limit this to electrons? Nobody knows how many electrons are in the universe or how large it is. Even if we accept a curvature of space that gives the universe a boundary (not yet known), that does not eliminate the existence of other universes. Now we are getting to infinity - no limits.
Total number of variations present in chess is 6.2771 x 10^57.
rvmurali24, could you give a source on that? because as far as I know the best anyone got so far was a very rough approximation
rvmurali24's figure is 6.3 x 10^57, what I read here was 10^120, a difference by a factor of 1.6 x 10^62, a very large discrepancy. GreenLaser asked about the number of electrons. Again I read it from here: that's 10^79. If we're not in the universe, then we are in a multiverse...
On questions on the universe: nobody really knows; astronomers do educated guesses. And as StacyBearden said, "so what?" 
Getting back to the original topic.... yes, the number of possible moves is infinite. The 50 move rule is not automatic: one player must claim the draw (the same applies to the rule about repeating the same position three times). So it's theoretically possible for a game to go on forever, repeating the same positions over and over. There would be an infinite number of (eventual) checkmates: even though many (an infinite number, in fact) would be identical positions, they would have been reached by a different number of moves and hence would be different games.
claiming a draw would only apply to the 3 move repetition
Feb 12, 2008
0
#19
janus255 wrote: Why do people always ask this? There's finitely many moves, pieces, and squares. Repetitions are not allowed. How could it be infinite?
The Koch snowflake is a shape which has finite area and can be bounded by a finite circle but has infinite circumference. Finite parts do not always mean a finite whole!
Do you believe that there is an infinite amount of checkmates and moves in a mid game during a single game of chess? Please tell your opinion